Top Gear, episode 2 recap: this was one for the petrolheads but that David Tennant interview was excruciating

With last week’s winning return of Top Gear, the new presenting team of Matt LeBlanc, Rory Reid and Chris Harris proved they could deliver an hour of slick factual telly about cars. Now they had to do it all over again.

Would it be another winning dash around the track? Or might the wheels belatedly come off? Let’s not forget Jeremy Clarkson and company’s The Grand Tour likewise got off to an impressive start. Only from part two onwards did deep structural flaws – such as the fact the hosts weren’t all that interested in motoring – begin to show.

The good news is that the second of seven instalments was nowhere near as dreadful at The Grand Tour part deux: an atrocity seared into the memory thanks to the scene in which Jezza, dressed as a special forces marine, gets his “bum” stuck in a crevice (the psychotherapist’s bill is on the way Jeremy).

But this was still not tip-top Top Gear. There were plenty of creaky moments, with the studio exchanges between the hosts and tetchy Time Lord David Tennant especially painful.

LeBlanc’s stiltedness remains a problem too. The irreverence that is part of Top Gear’s tool box is simply lost on the tanned, easy-going Hollywood star. Out on the open road, his Joey Tribbiani brashness papers over the cracks. In the studio, where there is an expectation the banter will flow like warm beer, he simply isn’t at the races. Please fix this Top Gear before it’s too late. Here is the rest of what we’ve learned.

This one was for the petrolheads

“I can’t believe this is happening – this is one of the best moments of my year so far!"

Was Chris Harris toasting the successful return of Top Gear? Had he won the lottery? Did he quite enjoy Kong: Skull Island ?

No, he was test-driving an Alfa Romeo and gyrated in ecstasy as he powered it up a hill at a respectable clip. After a decade plus of Clarkson and company’s blokey badinage, a Top Gear anchor was gushing, without irony or topsy-turvy metaphors, about a new car.

Then Harris has form for that kind of thing. Prior to finding gainful employment as the chap who stands slightly behind Matt LeBlanc and laughs at his co-presenter's jokes, he was already a well-regarded motoring journalist with a successful YouTube channel.

Chris Harris in an Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio

He can certainly talk the talk, as demonstrated with a super-trainspottery review of the (rather boring) Alfa. The excellence of the chassis was commented upon, kind words were lavished on the carbon fibre bodywork. “It has twin turbo, V6 horsepower!" thundered Harris, sounding like Simon Cowell bellowing the praises of a new boy band.

The love-in between the hosts continued

How shocked we all were when the three new presenters got on like a blazing semi-d last week. It was clearly no one off. The sequence in which Rory Reid challenged Harris to slide his Alfa through a huge polystyrene road-block blended spectacular camera-work and top-draw chat – and wouldn't have worked had the the pair secretly hated each other off camera.

Ouch… how painful was the David Tennant interview?

The former Doctor Who materialised in the studio like a visitor from another dimension to plug Broadchurch season three. He drove a Prius, which make him a petrolhead apostate in the eyes of the combative Harris. As banter turned to bickering a visibly uncomfortable Matt LeBlanc looked like he wanted the ground to open and swallow him (or, better yet, swallow Harris and Tennant).

The Stig was back

The Stig's return was delayed when iffy weather forced the cancellation of a test-drive last week. But now he sprang back into action with a roar as he took Harris’s boring Alfa around the circuit. Having sat through an entire season of The Grand Tour and its bracingly unfunny professional racer “The American”, what a novelty to encounter an expert driver you didn’t want to see spin immediately into the hard shoulder.

Is Chris Harris the new Jeremy Clarkson – and not in a good way?

Chris Harris next to an Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio in Wales

The assumption was that LeBlanc would be the new Jezza – the buccaneering big-mouth setting the tone. In fact, it is Harris who has emerged as a kindred spirit with his producer-smacking predecessor. He seemed genuinely offended by Tennant’s pro-Prius stance and was shouty and unreasonable throughout the studio segments. Squeeze him into dad jeans and you’d struggle to tell the difference.

Top Gear needs to keep Matt LeBlanc in his comfort zone

As an actor, it isn’t a surprise that LeBlanc would be more at ease playing up for the cameras than spontaneously chinwagging with strangers. He excelled as he and Harris compared and contrasted super cars in California – yet was utterly at a loss refereeing the row between his co-host and Tennant. This really needs sorting out. Top Gear has to play to its biggest star’s strengths rather leave him hanging in the wind.

That dash down the mountain looked genuinely dangerous

It is unthinkable Top Gear would put its presenters in harm’s way. But a whiff of danger was nonetheless conjured as Harris and LeBlanc slalomed in their supercars down a bendy road in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Just a few inches of tarmac separated the pair from a precipitous fall. Obviously neither was going over the edge. Yet the show show did a effective job making us at least entertain the possibility.

The super car face-off proved you don't need a Grand Tour-size budget to deliver thrilling television

The glory days of the Top Gear overseas adventure were resurrected as LeBlanc and Harris competed in their "four seasons" California challenge, which saw them race across sand, mountains and snow. On the heels of last week’s equally impressive trek to Kazakhstan the segment soothed worries that The Grand Tour’s far heftier budget would steal the BBC’s thunder. When it comes to shiny, smoke-spouting spectacle, Top Gear remains in pole position.